Obtuse
by xXxJazzy B. RealxXx
Summary: Amy turned her head to Shadow, eyes wet and stinging like eighty-degree burns. "Without a premonition, can you tell me where we stand?" One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** _I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog._

_**Author's Note: **DeviantART watchers would recognize this from a strictly DeviantART story titled, "The Light Before We Land," but I couldn't help but feel like this sub-section of that story would make a cute, short **one-shot **__for my account here_. There's nothing AU about this—it's just a "future" timeline instead of present SEGA universe.

* * *

Amy power-walked behind him as he escorted her to the Commander's office.

Each member of the _Sonic Heroes _squad had a connection with the government, but why did the Commander need his free-wheeling agent to drag her away from her bakery just to see her in a one-on-one meeting? Shouldn't Sonic be in her place? She wasn't a hero of Station Square, so the Commander shouldn't even recognize her name, save for her tracking device number.

The twenty-four year old squirmed her foot into the heel of her shoe as she limped down the halls with her bracelets jingling like bells. She tried to comb her fingers through her hair to rake out that bed hair look; twelve years grew her quills into a mane.

"Do you think I look anywhere near presentable?" She asked the black hedgehog, who had never actually **joined **G.U.N. like Rouge, but he allied with them when asked by the President or for his own personal endeavors.

Shadow wasn't listening to Amy's question, however. Or at least, maybe he was listening, but he sure wasn't answering. Two steps for him was four steps for her; his legs were much longer than hers, and the Starbucks coffee in his right hand must've been getting cold.

What was on his mind was what kept him out of her reach. Through all the years she would curl her pinky around his large thumb after her adulthood, Amy knew how the black hedgehog could get when he got like this. The artificial Shadow had vaguely told her that the urgent matter was about their personal investments, but what was so urgent to the Commander about the way she spent her time with the black hedgehog and, _unexpectedly_ tied herself to his dangerous missions for a bit of her own thrill?

Was the Commander being skittish because he conspired that she accidentally, and ridiculously, absorbed some of the hedgehog's Chaos Energy?

Was she in danger of chancing on some Top Secret project Shadow might've jeopardized telling her about?

Was it because the media was gossiping about her and the black hero having a more "friendly" relationship, or the silly idea of her being his "Maria replacement" and him being her "Sonic substitution"?

If yes, then the government and its suddeness to save-face was nothing but hysterical. Yet whatever the case was, it was certainly troubling Shadow.

In waist-deep measures such as these, he would lock himself away in his own mind to solve issues by himself without lending her a copy key. She wouldn't go trying to pry into the clews of his brain with a crow bar, of course. She'd simply touch his arm and smile in the face of his neutral glare, _"It'll all be okay. You have me to smile in your place."_

He'd never move, never flinch, never speak, never respond.

He'd leave everything up in the air for her to decipher what could possibly be running through his mind as he gazed at her. Sometimes he may even confess his turbulence and seek an answer from her. Though almost psychically, she understood him on the spot. In the end, Shadow's body would always loosen up, and the glint in his eyes would soften under her empathy. It had always been a talent of Amy's—to use her intuition to know one's feelings and put herself in their shoes to understand them, which was why she left a hard impact on those anti-hero acquaintances of hers.

One might've said it had to do with her psychic abilities as a reader, but she felt it had to do with her vast capacity to make love connections _(unromantically, that is)_ with everyone. Her gestures to pick up on Shadow's emotions calmed him to let him know that his paranoia, to the point of shutting down, was neither needed nor healthy. Not with her smile by his glare's side, anyway. He may have been unreachable when he wanted to be unreachable—mainly depending on the person he's around, his level of respect or admiration for them _(she assumed their ARK encounter solidated a high level for her)_, and their methods of reaching him—but he had never been untouchable when she touched him. Her touch gave him solace, and he reciprocated it. That was how their platonic friendship went.

Right now, however, all Amy wanted to do was stare at her shoes and chew on her hair. She moved away from him when their wrist-rings 'ping-ed' and shuddered when he tensed as they walked in step together.

She tried to imagine herself bumping against his shoulder with a playful smile as he'd make a smirky, sarcastic joke about her childishness. Then maybe after that, they'd wander over to the window of the Corporation building, away from the Commander's base. The time they'd spend being alone with each other and no one else would be spent with her laughter, his amused, '_Hmph_'s, her big smile, and his lazy smirk. And then maybe, he'd look off to the window with a comfortable but contemplating look on his face to sip his coffee, losing himself in the crowds on the sidewalk. Maybe she'd toy with the screws on the windowsill, and admire how the sunlight hit his eyes and made his skin glow.

Reality sucked her back when they both came across the corridor that led to the Commander's office. Amy shivered a little as she watched Shadow place his hand on the handle—

"Amy."

"Buh?" Not really a great answer, but she didn't know how else to react.

"If this goes badly..." The fact that he wasn't finishing his sentence spelt disaster, but the fact that he wasn't looking at her while spelling that disaster was what scared her. "...Then I suggest that both of us take...a break for a long period of time, for lack of a better term."

Amy stopped chewing on her pink quill and twisted her face into anger; she was hoping it was anger from being confused and not anger from him saying what she thought he was saying. She couldn't get the following words out of her mouth: _'You mean to stop being friends? Is that what you're saying? To stop spending time, to stop communicating, to make a nice, clean sever because the Commander decides we can't be on the same platform? ...You want to get away from me because others are prejudice against us?'_

"It would be best, at this point, to gather our heads and our lives individually before we move forward."

"...Tch," her head hung, bangs falling into her face as she smiled painfully. "Always been a jerk, haven't you?"

Her failure to let him know any of the dark, hairy thoughts that were cluttering her brain caused his frown to sink deeper. Her failure to understand that he was doing this for her benefit was what caused him to look away. Amy she tried to brush her fingers along his knuckles to stir a reaction out of him, but the only reaction she was rewarded with was him sliding his hand away from her and locking it into a fist. Shadow turned the handle to the Commander's office—

"What do you mean you can't find anything? There are connections here that have been laid out like a map ever since Ivo Robotnik came into the scene, so start drawing them."

The Commander was standing in front of his city-view windows with his head and shoulders blocking out the sun. Though the minute he heard the doorknob turn, he stiffened up like wood and glanced back at the two hedgehogs standing in the door of his office.

"Ah...yes. Lieutenant, I'll call you back." He flipped the lid over his phone and tucked it down into his pocket. "Shadow," he nodded to him. "Miss Rose," he only raised an eyebrow at Amy. "Sit. Both of you."

Shadow motioned Amy to walk before him. Sweating bullets, the pink hedgehog jogged up in front of him and allowed Shadow to walk behind her with a hand guiding her waist. He pulled out a chair for her in front of the Commander's desk, scooted her in, and brushed the lent off his sleeves as he pulled himself down into the chair next to her. Amy sat there shakily before the Commander and folded her hands in her lap. The Commander continued to stand with his arms crossed behind his back. He cleared his throat while adjusting a picture frame of his wife.

"The President said that you had...some _news_ to discuss with Amy," Shadow rested his elbow on the table and narrowed his eyes at the Commander. "And I am here on her behalf as well as _mine_."

Amy turned her head to Shadow, eyes wet and stinging like eighty-degree burns.

* * *

**Author's Note**: _Cliffy on a one-shot? Yep. You can use your imagination for the conversation, heh._

_I personally don't imagine Shadow to be distant, guarded and withdrawn from Amy on a regular basis like he has some kind of fan-made crab shell, since I'd vote her to be one of the few successors to sway him into her bubble of influence regardless. Shadow was not as much of a "guarded, dry wall emo" in the original game versions compared to that of Sonic X, spin-offs, or overwrought fanfiction. In scenarios like Shadow the Hedgehog or "when-push-comes-to-shove" confrontations with Sonic after Shadow's amusement towards him dried up in SA2, he seems to just have moments where he wants someone to GTFO of his beez-wax, particularly when under stress, or in some humorlessly !SRS-BUSINESS! situation, which was literally one game: Sonic 06._

_...To me he's gonna be indifferent because he's got some shite to dirty his hands in, he just doesn't give a feck about the person beside him at the time because OF that person being no one of interest unless they've got some info to fork over [this, or someone of a Maria-influence], or he's chill and mellowed out. Not grungy. But exaggerated stereotypes thrive._

_When he's causal (like in SA2, SH, some corny dialogues of ShtH, SR2, SEGA All Stars, and the Winter Olympics), he's full of playful, glib speech, 'evilly' amused by everyone instead of "annoyed," Sonic-upbeat, and mellow in other moments. "There's a time to play and a time to work." Outside of that, he blatantly wore his vulnerability/emotions on his sleeves._

_So, if he's going to be withdrawn for any canon reason, it'll be for whatever pressurized situation is weighing down on his back at that moment, like the one-shot implies. It's not a "personality trait," but it is a comes-and-goes habit to reflect how he deals with conflict if he's not whimpering over his wangst. XD; There's something far more "little boy"-ish about Shadow than people give him credit for._


End file.
